Canon City Breaking News, Sports, Weather, Traffic

Lindsey Vonn: It's hard getting strength and endurance back

By Lindsey VonnSpecial to The Denver Post

Posted:
01/22/2013 12:01:00 AM MST

Lindsey Vonn of the United States. (Giovanni Auletta, The Associated Press)

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, ITALY — It was really hard for me to take three weeks off from the World Cup to come home and train to get my strength back after the intestinal illness that hit me so hard before the season.

I had never missed a series of races like that, never taken a big break from the World Cup. To be away from the tour, missing the adrenaline and competition, seeing other people on the podium and doing well was really hard. I felt like my body let me down.

Martin Hager, my trainer from Red Bull, was with me. We worked out every day, three times a day. It was perfect, not only to get me strong, but also to regroup and be ready mentally when I came back.

I had to rebuild all the fitness I worked so hard to attain in training last summer. I had lost all my strength and endurance. It came back slowly, but I'm at a good place now. I still have to do weight training and things like that, which I've never had to do in-season before, because I'm playing catch-up.

It was really pathetic, the way I was feeling at the beginning of my work with Martin. I was extremely tired. Sixty minutes of biking was completely draining. By about the third or fourth day, I felt much stronger and progressed to three sessions a day. By the last week, I was into really tough training.

We tried to build up my endurance from a cardio standpoint and from a strength-endurance standpoint.

Advertisement

Before my break, I was getting tired a third of the way down a run, which is not good in a sport as hazardous as ski racing, so we did a lot of training specifically to build that strength and endurance back up. That means pushing yourself past the point of exhaustion. It was a lot of really grueling workouts, but I think I made up a lot of what I lost. I got my strength pretty close to where it was before.

When I returned to the tour two weekends ago in St. Anton, Austria, where I finished fourth and sixth, I was a little bit nervous because I hadn't been racing in a while and I felt like I was behind everyone. I just didn't quite have the aggression I normally have. I was a little conservative, a little passive in some sections.

I felt much better this past weekend in Cortina, where I won a downhill for my 58th World Cup victory. I felt like my confidence was there, I knew what I had to do to win, I went out and executed. Finally I was physically able to ski the way I wanted.

When I took the break, I kind of put aside my goals for the season and tried to regroup. Now that I have my first win after the break, my confidence is back, but I'm still not sure if my strength is going to hold up the rest of the season.

I know for sure I'll go into the world championships (Feb. 5-17 in Schladming, Austria) feeling strong, and I hope I can come away with some medals. I'm going to continue to try to win as many speed races as I can, and hopefully I can get to Annemarie Moser-Proell's all-time record for World Cup wins (62), but I'm just taking it one day at a time, trying to maintain my strength and manage my energy as best I can. I hope it's enough.

Vail's Lindsey Vonn, a four-time World Cup overall champion, reports regularly from the tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer. This is her first installment since leaving the tour for a three-week hiatus.

OUARZAZATE, Morocco (AP) — The people are restive, the priesthood is scheming and a fanatic band of insurgents known as the zealots are plotting assassinations — and now to make matters worse, the body of a condemned cult-leader known as Jesus has disappeared from the tomb, apparently following some ancient prophecy. Full Story